If Only Briefly
by Vekrote
Summary: Sly and Carmelita find a way to put aside their differences for a short while atop a rooftop in Paris. A one-shot distraction project.


_**Author's note:**_ Well, here's… something. While planning out parts of Reservations a few ideas kept springing up here and there that I really liked. Problem was that not a single one of them would have made sense in that world. This is one of those "this story wanted to write itself" sort of things. Don't worry, Reservations Chapter 10 is still being plugged away at, but the idea for this one-shot was starting to get in the way. This is me shooing it out the door so I can get back to real work. Timeline for when this is set doesn't really matter, I guess. Call it an AU if you want, I just wanted to do something with this world and with these characters, and anything that happened in the games that was important will be referenced. Definitely set before the 3rd game, though (and this little blurb right here is the closest you'll ever get to me acknowledging the abortion that was the 4th). Anyway, on to the show. (Also not at all related to TFC, but I probably shouldn't have to clarify that at this point.)

\- **If Only Briefly** -

At some point in the past, suddenly, and completely without him realizing, life had stabilized.

There was now a pattern to everything. He had fallen into the rhythm of… not a routine, exactly, but he could now count on certain things happening at a certain time in a certain order. That wasn't to say that any of it was boring, of course. He wouldn't change a single thing about the way he'd chosen to lead his life. Ever since that day where everything had changed for him, when he and his friends had finally decided to go up against the Klaww gang to try and retrieve his birthright, each and every day would start shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. He'd gained so much over the course of his life spent walking the path he'd chosen.

The only thing that he'd lost was a sense of uncertainty.

Bentley's slideshow presentation for the heist later tonight had wrapped up a couple of hours ago, and he'd left it, as he always did, knowing everything he would need to make sure it went off without a hitch. There were bound to be a few close calls, near misses, and other such complications arise during the night, but he had enough faith both in his own skills and those of his partners to know that they would be able to handle anything that was thrown at them. It had been a long time since he'd paid complete attention start to finish to one of those presentations, normally only staying focused long enough to pick up the general idea of where to be, when to be there, and what he should once he gets there. He generally just winged it as far as the details were concerned, and it had gotten him this far just fine. Of course there were exceptions to this, such as when complicated schedules had to be learned, or absolute synchronization was required, but these were far from being regular occurrences. As it turns out, most evil masterminds suffer from a distinct lack of creativity.

It was there where uncertainty had given way and been replaced by repetition. It's funny how megalomaniacal villains all start to look the same after the first half dozen or so. If you've seen one criss-crossing laser security field, you've seen them all.

Sly padded slowly over to the railing along the rooftop, leaning his waist up against it to look out over the city. To anyone observing from below he would have been nothing more than a dark blur along the roofline, his blue shirt and natural grays disguising himself nicely against the brickwork and sky. While he wanted nothing more than to climb back up to the top of the eiffel tower and waste the night away perched on its spire as he'd done a couple of years prior, there simply wouldn't be enough time tonight. There were still a few hours yet until he had to be in position, but he didn't feel it fair to his partners to risk it.

Times like this, while not rare, were certainly few and far between. Most of the time after Bentley's presentations he'd use the intervening time to continue preparing for the main event, maybe plying his skills with some petty larceny to expand their wallets in the meantime. This, however, was one of those uncommon times where he'd chosen to simply sit and let the minutes tick by. No greater purpose, no self-imposed deadline or task, just simple relaxation in the cool air of the night he'd come to love so much over the years he'd spent in it.

He peeked into the binocucom holster he kept strapped to his thigh, the digital display of the device telling him the time. A small smile crept onto his features as he read it. To say that there wasn't a purpose to his time spent up here tonight wouldn't be completely honest, as there was a very good reason why he'd chosen this particular rooftop to relax on. If he was correct in his assumptions it would only be a few minutes more until he had a visitor. How welcome or unwelcome they were going to be was still yet to be decided, but he'd cross that bridge when he got there. Or, rather, when _they_ got here. Not a problem for now, at any rate.

Several more minutes crept silently by as he fell back into his own thoughts in the meantime, but his ears were still sensitive enough to pick up on someone trying to step as lightly as possible behind him. Only one problem with their attempt, though…

"If you ever decide to wear something other than those boots, you might actually sneak up on me one of these days," he said with a smile, not bothering to look behind him towards his would-be assailant. There was a brief period of silence, and then the unmistakable sound of a shock pistol warming up called his attention back fully. He turned around slowly, crossing his arms and leaning back against the railing as he greeted his guest with a small downwards tilt of his head.

His visitor's intense gaze was pinning him backwards, her pistol not yet leveled at him but instead pointed slightly downwards, ready to be put into action at a moment's notice. "No sudden moves, Cooper. You know how this is going to go."

His cocksure smile ticked momentarily down. He did know how this was going to go, and that was exactly why he was here. He'd make some sort of comment, she'd counter with one of her own, and then their well-practiced duet of chaser and chasee would commence until he'd inevitably give her the slip. It was something they'd done many times before all over the world and under all sorts of circumstances, but the base elements were always the same. The uncertainty - the _thrill_ \- had been lost somewhere along the line.

Which is why tonight he'd decided long before he set off that it was high time he try something new, and that line of thinking had lead him to start forming what was sure to be a bit of a bad idea. Honestly, it had the distinct possibility of being the worst idea he'd ever had. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

He slowly turned his head to look back over his shoulder, letting his eyes trace the horizon out over the sea of buildings. "This is my favorite time of night." His steady voice belied his true feelings.

Carmelita kept her eyes trained on him as he'd turned to face the city, expecting him to vault over the railing any second now. A few more moments passed between them without another word said before she finally let her eyes leave him. It very well could have been a simple trick to get her to look away, like those he'd used to great effect in times past, so her concerns were built upon a _very_ strong foundation.

Her own reluctance to take in the sights did nothing to change them, their timeless beauty only amplified by the stillness of the night. The business district glowed as a beacon in the distance, it's gleaming glass buildings, all of much newer construction than the rest of the city, lent an otherworldly glow that domed that corner of the land. The yellow lights of the streets broke the city up like a shattered pane of glass, with pathways snaking this way and that, never terminating in a neat dead end. Flashes of brightly colored lights danced this way and that in the corners of their vision as a myriad of neon signs and storefront displays bounced from one garish color to the next. Paris was alive with a different type of life this late at night. Being up this late, where night and morning tended to blend together, was a choice. It was rare to find yourself accidentally awake at this time, and the honesty of it all was reflected in the subtle changes in the city's movements. Life had less direction than it did during the daylight hours; there was less of a rigid schedule that most had to adhere to, as those concerns were often the worry of the following morning. A siren wailed in the distance like a forlorn bird, disappearing back out of earshot as quickly as it had arrived. Carmelita's ears perked instinctively at the alarm, but she held herself from reacting to it any further.

The seconds stretched on between them as city's life continued to play out beneath them. Sly was the first to break the silence, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. He'd had an idea a long time ago, and now seemed as good a time as any to try it out. It was less of a plan and more of just a general idea of how he'd like things to go, but that had always seemed to work out just fine for him before. "Would you believe me if I said I'd be right back?"

The vixen glared at him, her grip tightening against her pistol as her head tilted down, wordlessly daring him to make any sort of sudden move. He hadn't done anything yet, but that damned _yet_ was the million dollar word. If their years-long game of cat and mouse had taught her anything at all it was that it was only a matter of time with him, no matter what _it_ might be. Wherever he showed up, trouble was sure to follow.

"Scout's honor." He held up two fingers in a mock salute. "Look," he leaned his cane carefully against the chimney plinth nearest him, watching as the fox's eyes tracked its path. "Two, three minutes tops. Please let this still be here when I get back?" He pleaded. It was in that same sarcastic tone he always used to try and get a rise out of her, but his eyes lent an extra weight to his statement that was normally not present. A part of him genuinely worried over leaving it behind, even for a moment, and a quick dash of levity was his best attempt to try and hide his concern.

Her eyes bounced back and forth between him and his cane as he took a few testing steps backwards, watching her closely to make sure she was playing along. Her expression softened once he was a few feet away, now outside the range of easily snatching it back up and bolting. Her pistol didn't lower from it's low ready position, but neither did it raise to track him as he continued backing up towards the edge of the roof.

"Just a couple minutes, I promise," he said again, holding both his hands up disarmingly. He didn't make a single sound as he leapt from the edge, disappearing quickly beneath the roofline and completely out of sight.

Carmelita took a few measured breaths, counting out the seconds as her senses remained on high alert should the raccoon still be planning something. One of her ears was cocked rearwards, listening intently in case he was sneaking up behind her. She allowed her shoulders to relax after a few moments more, taking a deep breath. She deftly slid her pistol back into its holster, very deliberately leaving the safety off should she have to put it to quick use.

She let her eyes sweep the rooftop one final time before finally accepting that maybe he wasn't planning anything this time, her tail swishing back and forth in uncertain annoyance as she tried to make sense of what she'd just allow him to do. Her attention made its way to the cane he'd left propped up a few feet away, and once her eyes landed on it she was unable to take them off. She'd seen it plenty of times in the past, but always from a distance, and always attached to its infuriating owner. That cane's reputation, as well as that of its wielder, was damn near the stuff of legends. She knew about the Cooper Clan, as did everyone that found themselves in the circles of law enforcement, and the tools of the thieving raccoons' trade often commanded as much intrigue as the thieves themselves.

She found herself unconsciously walking towards it, her steps careful and slow as though she expected it to somehow leap out at her if given the chance. She knelt down and ran her hand down the length of its shaft, it's wooden construction wasn't polished, but it had been worn completely smooth over its lifetime. The joint where the gleaming hooked end was affixed didn't have any sort of seam that you would expect, instead transitioning from one material to another like they'd both been somehow carved from a solid piece.

She could take it. She could pick it up right now, tuck it under an arm, and that would be the end of it. Her eyes widened at how stupid the raccoon had been to just leave it here with her, but it was that same thought that gave her pause. She still couldn't shake the feeling that this was all some sort of trick. There was no possible way he'd left his actual cane behind, was there? Yet, as she took another look at it, there wasn't any way that this was anything other than the genuine article. A handful of misguided online 'fan clubs' dedicated to the raccoon and his exploits had made a few copies, some sparing absolutely no expense in their construction, but every single one of them she'd run across had lacked a certain _je-ne-sais-quoi._ There was some sort of ethereal quality present in the cane laid so foolheartedly, yet so reverently before her that left her convinced that it was authentic. That, itself, raised far more questions than it answered.

First and foremost: what the hell was he planning? Did he leave it here just to catch her off guard, planning to spring up from below the roofline any moment now and make his grand escape before she could react? Was he off stealing something that didn't require the use of his cane, and him leaving it here was a sure-fire way to make sure she wouldn't wander off to get in his way?

She shook her head, standing back up. Each possibility was quickly discounted and tossed aside. Whether she realized quite to what extent or not, she _knew_ him, and if there was one thing the raccoon was, it was proud. Proud of his skills as a thief, proud of his friends, proud of his family line… His pride would never let him use something so important to him as a simple distraction.

Her eyes darted from one corner of the roof to the other. "What are you planning…"

Silence was her only answer as one, two, three minutes ticked by. A growing part of her was screaming to take the cane and run, knowing that everything that she'd been trying to do for the past few years would finally be over. Perhaps, she thought in a moment of uncomfortable self reflection, that was why she left it be.

She crossed her arms and leaned back into the chimney that the cane was resting against, careful not to knock it over. She kept her senses as sharp as she could, listening and watching for any sign of the raccoon. If 'two, three minutes tops' was to be trusted, he should have been back by now. A small snort escaped her lips at the thought. When had the thief ever been worthy of her trust? The absurdity of the situation began to nip at her sensibilities, and she was getting closer and closer to taking the cane and making a run for it. Backup was only a quick radio call away, and though this was her part of the city to be patrolling this time of night more officers could be here in only a couple minutes time.

Her eyes flicked back down to the cane. Wordlessly, she leaned over to it. Her hand hovered above it's wooden shaft for a moment before she finally lifted it, immediately struck by how light it was. With how easily she'd seen it beat the absolute snot out of more than just a few low-level goons she would have expected it to have a bit more heft to it. She twisted it this way and that beneath her fingers, its golden metal hook gleaming proudly even in the dim light of the night. Each and every star in the sky could be seen reflected on it, but not a single light glinted off of its finish. It was odd to her how something so highly polished could capture the light in such a way that it looked like it was melting into its surroundings instead of simply reflecting it all. It was proud, well kept, but it would be impossible to spot if you weren't looking for it.

"Not gonna lie, I didn't expect you to still be here when I got back."

His voice startled her, but she was able to hide any outward signs of surprise. She turned to face him, noticing his eyes dart nervously from her down to the cane that was in her hands as he melted back out of the shadows.

"Thanks for keeping that safe, too," he said, underhandedly pointing at his cane. He held his hand out beckoning for her to hand it back. "If it's all the same to you, though, I'll just be taking it… back…"

Her hands tightened around its haft. "Give me one good reason why I should give this back to you."

Sly smiled. That same infuriating, disarming, _I've-got-you-right-where-I-want-you_ smile that he'd worn so many times around her. "Give me one good reason why you haven't already run off with it."

 _Dammit._ She sighed. She didn't have an honest answer to that readily available. Instead of playing further into his game, she leveled her eyes at his. "I was trying to figure out how you could be stupid enough to leave it behind." He shrugged in response, which did nothing but fan the flames of her current mood. "Where did you run off to?" In answer to her question, his eyes bouncing from his cane back to meet hers, he held out his other hand. In it was a bottle of wine.

"Had to go pick this up," he answered smoothly, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about what he was doing.

"And what, exactly, are you planning on doing with that?"

Sly shrugged. "Was kind of hoping we could share it."

She laughed, one of her hands coming free from the cane to hang down towards her pistol. "You are out of your absolute mind, do you know that?"

"I've had a few people tell me that, yeah." His eyes followed her hand as it dropped from his cane. While outwardly relaxed, he had his legs coiled to launch him out of harm's way should things go south. With her temper, things had a very, _very_ good chance of going south. "Figured we could try something different tonight. Y'know, just talk?"

"You're crazy," she huffed, again becoming increasingly worried that this was all sort of some scheme.

"Here," he moved to put the bottle down on the ground, but his movements were just a little bit too quick for the fox's liking, her pistol flying back out from its holster. It was fully leveled at him this time, and he found himself staring down it's barrel in a way that started ringing every alarm bell he had. It took every bit of self control he could muster to keep from jumping to the streets below, but he somehow managed it. He had frozen in a half-crouch, the bottle of wine only inches from the rooftop. Several uncomfortable seconds passed by before he worked up the courage to slowly, _slowly_ finish putting the bottle down. He held both of his hands up, palms out, and slowly stood back up, his eyes never once leaving hers.

They stared at each other wordlessly, both completely unaware of anything other than the one across from them. Sly, once again, was the first to break the silence. He opened his mouth slowly, taking a breath to let her know that he was going to start speaking. The last the he wanted right now was to surprise her. "There were a couple of folding chairs behind that chimney yesterday. If they're still there, I'd really like to be able to sit down."

"The chimney directly behind me?" She asked, her eyes glued to him from behind the sights on her pistol. She was unblinking, unmoving, and spoke in an authoritative way that left no room for misinterpretation.

Sly nodded slowly, both of his hands still raised. Optimism was fighting a surprisingly strong self-preservation instinct within him right now, and he wasn't sure exactly how much longer he could hold out. Her picking up his cane while he was gone was a possibility he'd expected, but actually having to deal with it was a lot more nerve wracking than he'd anticipated. She wasn't giving him much to work with, so the only choice he had left was to hope that she'd give him a chance. She'd shown a handful of times in the past that she had some amount of compassion within her for him, so all he could do was hope that some of it would surface.

Carmelita took two steps backwards, her shoulders squared and pistol held rock steady on the raccoon. Now even with the back of the chimney, her eyes darted quickly to the side to look behind it, snapping them right back to her sight picture. She repeated the action once more, verifying that the chairs were where he said they were, and then took several more steps backwards. "Come and get them," she said, her voice level but commanding. It wasn't a challenge, but instead a simple instruction that she expected him to follow.

Sly, hands still up, started to take a step forwards, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her finger tighten against the trigger.

"Slowly. Come and get them, but _slowly._ " Her voice was absolutely ice cold. She had the upper hand right now, and she knew it.

Sly complied, taking step after agonizing step towards the chimney. He stopped once he'd cleared its rearward edge, turning his head to find them. Still facing her, he carefully sidestepped towards them. "I'm going to take these and set them up closer to the edge of the roof, ok?"

She nodded from behind her weapon, her other hand coming up to clasp the handle of the cane against the grip of her pistol. It was an awkward grip, but it allowed her more control should she need to start firing. Part of her was disappointed at her present level of restraint.

After slowly retreating back towards the edge of the roof he'd come from, he set up both chairs on either side of the bottle he'd set down earlier. "I'm going to have to leave again," he said, her expression unchanged throughout the entire ordeal they'd just been through.

"Like Hell you are," she challenged.

Sly slowly brought his hands back up, making sure they stayed within her view. "I'll be back, just like before. Two, three minutes tops."

"Where are you going this time? Tell me right now."

"Glasses," was his one word answer. When neither she nor her pistol budged, he decided that a bit of clarification wouldn't do him any harm. "There's a cafe a half block away. A waiter left a caddy full of wine glasses outside, must have forgotten about them when they closed. I'm going to borrow a couple so we don't have to drink straight from the bottle."

" _Borrow,_ " Her voice, once again, left no room for her true meaning to be misinterpreted.

"Borrow," he placated in as truthful of a voice as he could. "I'd have no use for a couple of wine glasses, don't worry. They'll be put back when we're done."

"Still assuming I'm going along with all this, aren't you?"

"You've let me get this far," he pointed out. "I'd appreciate it if you let me see this out."

Still she stared at him. Finally coming to a decision, she jerked her head to indicate he should disappear, which he agreed with and carried out without a moment's hesitation. Again, she was left alone.

What the hell was she _doing_? Carmelita let the muzzle of her pistol drop to the ground, the tension in her shoulders hissing out like a ruptured hydraulic line. She was thankful the cane was as light as it was; any heavier and she doubted she'd have been able to have held it at arm's length for as long as she had.

Twice now she'd had him. _Twice._ In the span of less than ten minutes time she'd had that damned thief dead to rights, unarmed, and staring at the business end of her shock pistol. Why why _why_ had she let him go? She looked venomously at the cane still in her hands, and had to seriously restrain herself from just lobbing it off the side of the roof to the streets below. She knew if she did she wouldn't see him again tonight. He would find it, realize that he had no reason to come back up to the rooftop any more, and that would be the end of it. His cane was the only bargaining chip in play right now, and she didn't want to give it up.

An errant thought reached out and pressed the pause button. If this cane was her leverage over him, how was _he_ the one using it to make sure she did what he wanted? She may be the one making all the demands, but she hated how he was still managing to do everything he wanted. What she hated perhaps even more than how he was doing everything he wanted was _what_ it was that he was doing. Some sort of… moonlight rendezvous? She was a cop, he was a criminal, and it was her duty to bring him in. Why was she playing along?

If she were to be completely honest with herself, she would admit that she knew exactly why she was playing along. When had she ever been honest with herself, though?

The sound of two glasses clinking together drew her attention to the side. Sly was holding the freshly gotten glasses, hands raised once more in plain sight.

"That was faster," she said, letting him know that he'd been noticed.

Sly shrugged, noting how her pistol stayed pointed at the ground instead of him. "Wasn't as far away as I remembered." He gently shook the hand that held the glasses, drawing her attention to them. "Can I set these next to the bottle?"

She nodded, allowing him to pass by her. She watched as he did exactly what he said he would and nothing more, with not a single movement wasted. Turning back around to face her, he raised both his eyebrows in a sort of 'what now' expression. "Well," he said, motioning to the chairs, "want to join me?"

She looked back and forth between him and the chairs, fighting an internal war over what to do. She held all the cards right now, and it was entirely up to her how the rest of the night would play out. If she were to refuse his suggestion, arresting him instead of joining him, her night would be filled with paperwork, questions, incessant pestering from the international press… and the kind of praise that would change the course of her entire career. Taking in the most notorious international thief on the planet would irreversibly alter her world, and send her rocketing towards all sorts of accolades. Any roadblocks on upward mobility within Interpol would be done away with overnight, and her potential with the organization would be limitless. His arrest at her hand would be taught in the history classes in police academies around the world.

Imagine her surprise, then, when she found herself walking towards him. She once again holstered her pistol, safety on this time, but made up for it by tightening her grip on his cane. It was never something that she would admit to herself, but an opportunity to sit and talk with the raccoon was enticing in a way that she didn't want to fully understand.

Sly was at a loss for what to do as he watched her approach, but was able to seat himself as she wordlessly chose the chair on his left. She made sure he saw her adjusting her holster as she settled herself, not wanting him to forget just what she was capable of should he try anything. Neither one of them fully expected her to go along with what he was doing, and so both were caught equally off guard.

It took a few moments for her to finally look away from him and out across the city, and it wasn't without reservations that she did so. She was already this deep, so there wasn't any true further risk to her letting her attention wander. If he was going to try something stupid he would have done so long ago. Keeping up a charade this long wasn't like anything she knew he would do.

Sly, for his part, was just as nervous at their proximity. Truthfully, he hadn't expected to get this far, and the realization of what it meant to 'just wing it' in this specific scenario was starting to sink in. Taking a deep breath, he was about to reach for the bottle of wine between them, but stopped before he could start moving. "I'm going to start filling up the glasses," he announced, still not wanting to spook her with any unexpected movement. She nodded, not letting herself look back at him as he took to the task. Pulling the cork from the bottle, an impressive feat given his lack of any real opener, he poured an equal amount into each glass in turn, setting hers gingerly near the front leg of her chair.

She made no motion towards it, but Sly didn't think it important to point this out. Instead of filling the space between them with meaningless words, he instead took a sip from his glass. Normally one to fill this sort of exchange with a smart quip or pointed observation, the silence was markedly out of character for the raccoon. It was a fact that stood out uncomfortably to the fox, the fact that he wasn't saying anything somehow more bothersome than any possible alternative. It ate at her until eventually she'd had enough.

"Why are we doing this?"

Sly took a moment to respond, himself having to look for the answer. "I thought it'd be… Nice."

Her head turned towards him, an eyebrow creeping upwards. "Nice?"

"...Yeah, nice. Instead of the whole chasing and running thing we could just, I don't know… sit? Talk?"

"You realize there's no way you're getting out of this without a pair of handcuffs."

Sly took a deep, contemplative breath. She was still on the defensive. Not that he expected any differently. "I know," he spoke breathilly through his exhale.

It was _not_ the kind of response Carmelita expected, and it served to take most of the steam out of whatever attack she had been lack of his usual gaiety was becoming more and more of a point of worry. "What are you planning?"

"Nothing, honest." He took another sip of his wine, looking over at her. A cautious smile crept its way onto his muzzle. "Just wanted to sit."

Carmelita shook her head, still suspicious of the raccoon's true motives. His words sounded true, but he'd built his entire life around being dishonest. She wasn't about to let him get the upper hand with nothing more than a few honeyed words. "I don't believe you," she said simply, reaching down to finally pick up her own glass. She swirled it around a couple of times before gingerly taking a sip. It was a pleasant choice, she'd give him that; dark and dry, yet not overpoweringly so. Moreso, it tasted… familiar. She looked down at the bottle between them, barely making out the label. She looked up at him incredulously, not believing what she was looking at. "Is this…?"

"Yep," he answered simply, his smile from earlier making a second appearance. "Took me forever to find another bottle of it. You sure know how to pick 'em."

She let out a snort of laughter at his confirmation. It was, if his words and her sense of taste were to be believed, the same type that they'd shared during their ill-fated helicopter ride above the city earlier last year. "This wasn't some spur of the moment thing, was it?" She asked, silently impressed. If this was an act he was putting on, it was damned well rehearsed.

He shook his head. "It would have been, but it took me forever to work up the courage to actually do it."

"Why are we doing this?" She repeated, some of the edge lost from her voice.

"I told you. I thought it'd be nice."

 _Nice._ She examined the word in her head, turning it this way and that searching for any other possible meanings. Sharing a drink with the one who'd been the source of more work-related problems and nights of lost sleep than anyone else on the planet was not normally what she'd classify as _nice_ , and yet… She took a deep breath, punctuating it with another sip of wine. "...Nice," she said out loud, wondering if maybe the word would take on another meaning if it came from her.

Sly laughed. "Sure is echoey out her tonight."

 _There it was_. She was wondering when he'd fall back to his old self, his uncharacteristic sincerity beginning to gnaw at her. That really was Sly Cooper sitting just a couple of feet to her side. Her hand closest to her holster twitched unconsciously at the realization.

If he'd noticed it, he didn't let on. Silence descended once more as they both took sporadic sips from their glasses.

Despite her present company, it was a beautiful night in the city, she had to admit. If there had to be a night where she was dragged into something like this, there could have certainly been worse ones. She frowned, her own train of thought tripping her up once more. Dragged into? She was sitting here because she wanted to, because she _chose_ to. She had the gun, she had the cane, and she had him in a very dangerous spot. She could cuff him to the chair before he could react, that she was absolutely sure of. While he was sure to be able to get out of them somehow, it would buy her enough time to get him properly subdued. There would be no last minute escape for him this time, oh no. Check and mate.

So why wasn't she doing any of it? Her hip was aware of the uncomfortable press of her handcuffs, just itching to be deployed, but, just like her pistol, they remained holstered. The only thing she had readily out and available wasn't even hers, and she doubted she could put the cane to as good of use as the raccoon could. What could she possibly do with it? Threateningly wiggle it at him? That was really all she _had_ been doing with it, though, perhaps minus the wiggling bit. It was a threat that was becoming increasingly hollow, and she knew he would have already taken notice of the fact. The reality of the situation, she finally relented, was that this was… nice. Just sitting here, sharing a bottle of wine, not worrying about anything other than what she had to. It had been a long time since she'd done anything like this, her work schedule not allowing much more than token attempts at relaxation at the ends of her shifts. She rarely got days off, but this was as much of a decision on her part as it was on her department's. If Carmelita Montoya Fox was anything, it was dedicated to her craft. She wanted to make a difference in the world, and pursued every avenue of attack she could that brought her closer to adding towards that goal. Life had selected a purpose for her, and it was rarely compatible with evenings spent shared with a bottle of wine.

Growing tired of the silence, she decided it was her turn to try and break it. If they were going to do this whole 'relaxing' thing then there was no sense puttering around it. "So tell me," she began, noting in a pleased way how the raccoon jumped ever so slightly at her sudden words. "What made you decide this was a good idea? Did you really just want to talk?"

Sly took another sip of his wine, staring into it for a short while before answering. "Honestly? Yeah. I've been wanting to do something like this ever since our little aerial tour of the city after we beat Clock-La. Thanks for the help with that, by the way," he added quickly. "Don't remember if I ever thanked you or not."

She nodded once in recognition of his compliment, deciding it was more prudent to simply accept than to try any alternative. Working together to take down a common enemy was something they'd done a handful of times, and always to great effect. The problem with that, though, was that they weren't supposed to work together. It went against everything she worked to uphold, so the fact that they did it so well was a source of endless conflict within her. She didn't know how to view their apparent compatibility when it came to taking down common enemies, and as such had decided to ignore it as fiercely as she could. So far so good in that regard, though that didn't stop it from sometimes creeping into the outer fringes of her consciousness when she was trying to get to sleep some nights.

"You have to admit," Sly continued, a trait working its way into his voice that Carmelita couldn't quite identify, "that helicopter ride was pretty fun."

"I will admit," she conceded simply, not adding any further qualifier to her answer. She took another deep breath, the absurdity of the situation once again bubbling to the surface. "I'll be honest with you, I have no idea why I've let this little rooftop chat go on as long as it has."

Sly let out a single huff of laughter. "Me either. Figured there'd be a lot more shooting going on by now."

She nodded. "Plenty of time for that later, don't you worry. You're not getting out of this."

"So you've told me." He looked over at her- the one and only Inspector Fox that had been hot on his heels for years now. He was unsure of what it was exactly that had compelled him to throw caution to the wind tonight and take on a risk as big as this, though he did have at least some inkling as to why. He wasn't so foolish to be harboring any feelings of false hope, as he knew they would inevitably go back to being what they always had been at the conclusion of the night, but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy whatever this was for the time being. A harmless game of pretend that would let him rest easier at night. He leaned back in the chair, resting one of his legs atop the other. "I don't think I've ever asked," he began, the change in his tone drastic enough to draw her complete attention. "Why'd you want to be a cop?"

The abruptness of his question caught her momentarily off guard. It was usually the sort of question she loved to answer, having rehearsed it to near perfection due to the number of times she'd answered it. She would normally launch into her spiel about how she wanted to make a difference in the world, and how she could be a force for good, but her usual answer seemed somehow hollow given the circumstances.

Her brow knit together as she looked deeper into the horizon, hoping that it would somehow grant her the answer she seeked. Finding nothing, she instead decided to counter with a question of her own. "What made you want to be a criminal?" The tried and true 'no, you' approach. Never failed.

"Thief," he corrected bluntly.

She cocked an eyebrow his way. "Hmm?"

"Not a criminal. A thief." There was more conviction behind his words this time, an emphasis placed on _thief._

"And the difference would be..?" She pried sarcastically.

He looked up and away, sorting out his thoughts. "An important one. Devil's in the details." He gave her a few seconds to interject, but continued on when she kept her silence. "Is every criminal a thief?"

It was a simple question, and she immediately caught on to where he was going with it. "No, but every thief is a criminal. What, so you think you're special? Is that it?" Whether she meant for them to be or not her words still had her placed on the attack.

He shrugged, something he found himself doing a lot lately. It wasn't that he was indifferent to her way of thinking, just that he had difficulty meeting it. "Sort of?"

She laughed. "You're certainly something, and we'll get back to that." She paused, looking back out over the city. "So you want to know why I became a cop, huh? I'm surprised your little turtle friend hasn't already got a file on me somewhere."

"Oh he does, believe me." He smiled, knowing full well that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. "Just like I imagine you have a full one on me. Early life, motives, known accomplices…"

"It's a real _War and Peace_ ," she joked. By her last count, it really was only a couple dozen pages away. She had no doubt at all in her mind that he'd eclipse it soon.

He bowed as low as his seated position would allow. "I'm honored."

"I'm sure you are." The way he made light of having a police record that was directly contributing to deforestation infuriated her. He really was proud of what he did, and she couldn't possibly fathom why. It did, however, bring her attention to a way she could answer his earlier question about herself. "I became an officer to try and make sure people like you couldn't hurt anyone else."

 _People like me…_ her comment rubbed him the wrong way, but he let her continue. There would hopefully be time to sort out the nitty gritty later.

She had joined the Spanish National Police Corps to try and make a difference in this world, and her exploits had lead her to eventually signing on at Interpol, knowing that the more far-reaching nature of the organization would allow her to do even more.

And more she had done. She had an arrest record that was nearly unparalleled within the organization, spanning dozens of continents, dozens of high-profile arrests, and a marked contribution to the betterment of the planet to tie it all together. By all rights, she was a hero, though she was quick to strike down anyone who tried to label her as such. She was doing a job that she felt a duty to uphold, not some sort of heroic crusade to be lauded for.

Sly took the moment of silence after her 'answer' as an opportunity to goad her further. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"No, I don't," she glared, frustrated at his unwillingness to accept her answer. "You asked why I became a cop, so I told you."

"No, you didn't. You told me what was in your file."

 _My file..._ The thought that they were keeping tabs on her raised the fur on the back of her neck. "You want me to give you some sob story about how I wanted to make my parents proud? Continue the family tradition? Is that it?"

He was quick to parry her barbs. "No, that's more my answer."

She felt the first bit of her aggression fade as his response sunk in. She was quick to catalogue it, as she did every new bit of evidence she came across, and would have to be sure to come back to it. Something about the way he said it let on that there was more to be uncovered in that particular line of questioning. "So what do you want to hear? What do you want me to say?"

Sly sighed deeply, reclining backwards once more. "Not sure. I guess I just wanted to try and find some common ground."

"What could we possibly have in common?" Her anger had more or less entirely faded away at this point, her question not coming out nearly as pointedly as she'd intended. What she'd meant to be a sarcastic remark about how different they were sounded a lot more like a genuine desire to know what he thought. She quickly worked to convince herself that it was accidental, and vowed to not make the same mistake twice.

"More wine?" He held out the bottle.

Carmelita blinked, his offer catching her off guard. Her grip tightened around her glass. The bottle, and by extension his hand, coming closer to her tripped an involuntary alarm. She was still very much 'on the clock', and her body was reacting accordingly. It took a second or two for her to recognize that his action was benign, and a few seconds further for her to hold out her glass and allow him to fill it. He repeated the action with his own, setting the now half-empty bottle back down between them.

"I'm going to give you my answer first, is that ok?" He asked.

She wasn't sure exactly where he was taking this, but felt safe enough to allow him to continue. "By all means."

He took a deep breath, prepping what he hoped wouldn't turn out to be too much too quickly. She was 'the enemy' after all, and anything he said can and would be used against him. After all the trouble he'd gone to in order to set up this little talk, however, he felt compelled to share as much as he could. There was no telling when he'd get another chance like this, and it would be remiss of him to not take advantage of it while he could. Anything he could do that might clear the air between them and let them get to know each other in the way he truly wanted to would always be worth it to him, no matter what the possible consequences might be.

"My parents were killed when I was a kid, but I'm sure you already know that," he began, looking over to her for confirmation. She nodded once, her eyes meeting his as he kept on. "I always knew about my family line, if that was another question you had."

"It wasn't, but I guess I've always wondered. So you didn't just wake up one day and decide to start stealing things?"

Sly laughed, quickly shedding the weight of his earlier words. "No, I always knew I came from a family of thieves. My dad was 'retired' by the time I came along, but he'd always tell me stories of some of the things he'd done, as well as a few stories of my ancestors thrown in for good measure. I was too young to really get anything out of the Thievius Raccoonus back then," he paused, "which I'm guessing you know what is?"

A simple nod.

"Right. Did you know they were killed on the night I was supposed to inherit it?"

"I…" She frowned. "...Did not."

"The Fiendish Five broke in, murdered my family, stole the book, and left me there, alone, to deal with it all. I spent the next ten years trying to become the best thief I could, because I knew I wouldn't be able to get the book back if I was anything less. I knew what I was supposed to be, my dad had told me that much, but without the book I never would have known _how_ to be a master thief. I wanted to be a thief because it was the only way I could have gotten my family's most precious artifact back to where it belongs, and out of the hands of those… monsters." He took another drink, this time slightly larger than the sips he had been nursing from it. "I'm not really over it all. _Anyway,_ I wanted to be a thief so that I could take back what had been stolen, just like my father did, just like his father did, and, well, you get the idea."

"How far back does it go?"

Sly gave her a lopsided look. "I thought you said I had a file?"

"Records only go back so far, Ringtail. I'd imagine whatever is in that book is a bit more accurate than what we have on you."

"Let's see… The first to write anything down was Slytunkhamen the First, a little over three thousand years ago." He let his eyes drift back over to her, curious to see how she would take learning that his family line went back as far as it did. He wasn't disappointed in her reaction.

"Three thousa-" She shook her head. "You thieves go back that far?"

"Farther than that," he added, unable to hide the pride in his voice. "No one really knows exactly when it all started, but he was the first to start recording what he did for future generations. He called the book ' _The Thievius Raccoonus',_ and the rest is history. Like I said, I _had_ to get that book back. I didn't have a choice."

And just like that, she had an answer to a question she'd held for a _long_ time. She'd expected it to have been more of a 'because I thought it would be fun', or maybe a 'I needed the money', but no, he had to go and surprise her with what seemed an awful lot like noble intentions. It was a common thread in all of his heists, it seemed; he never stole simply for the sake of it, at least not anything worth enough to truly matter. He only took from those that had themselves taken.

"Coopers, _all_ Coopers, steal only from those who have stolen," he continued, lending a voice to her thoughts." We don't want to be the best family of criminals - that's not what we're all about - we want to be the best family of _thieves_. Me, Bentley, and Murray… that's what we are. A Family." His gaze went distant again. "Each other's only family, as a matter of fact," he mumbled, more for himself to hear than her.

Every time he said 'thief' had her hackles raising a bit further, but his honest explanation of why he did it had started to chip away at her defenses. Her view of right and wrong had been built around the definition of the law, and while she had definitely matured into a more sustainable worldview as her career had progressed, the remains of the wall that divided good and bad were still clearly there. Gradually, and without her noticing, something had begun to change within her. "Bentley and Murray, your friends?" It was only the first part of a question, but she waited for his confirmation before continuing. "They're… orphans also, aren't they?"

Sly nodded again, much slower this time. "Yep. We all met at the orphanage way back when, and were pretty quickly thick as thieves." He gave her a lopsided grin, which she returned with a roll of her eyes. "I'd known them a couple of years before I told them about the book, and they were immediately on board." He smiled, thinking back to how willing his friends were to ditch what little stability they had left in their lives to help him. "We were all about 15 when we finally left the orphanage, and struck out on our own for the first time. It was a whole new world for us, and the first year was pretty rough. Took us a while to find our groove; without the book, I only had what little my dad had taught me before he was killed to go off of at the start, and there were a _lot_ of close calls and stupid mistakes, but in the end they made us stronger."He straightened up in his chair, his voice steadying. "Right after i'd turned eighteen, Bentley picked up the trail of one of the members of the Klaww Gang, and you know how the rest of that story goes. I wasn't nearly prepared enough to go after him, but I kept getting lucky in all the right ways. Before i knew it, I'd beaten him, and gotten the first few pages of the Thievius Raccoonus back." He gently cleared his throat. "I cried a lot that night," he said through a genuine smile, not at all ashamed to admit. "I don't know if I was happy or sad or what, but I just cried."

Carmelita, despite herself, couldn't help but smile as he recounted the story. She had been there to arrest Sir Raleigh, and had been too caught up in it to realize that Sly had slipped away, right under her nose. She remembered how he took down each and every member of the Klaww Gang, and how she was always there after the fact to mop up the mess. They'd formed an uneasy partnership in order to finally beat the infamous leader of the group, Clockwerk, at his base in Russia. Fighting side by side with the raccoon in that volcano had been the catalyst for a number of developments within her that she had still yet to come to terms with. Not the least of which was how she'd felt after he surprised her with a kiss. Speaking of which…

Sly rubbed at his arm after Carmelita punch him, a surprising amount of force behind it. "Ow, hey! What?"

"You left me handcuffed to the railing in that volcano, you ass!" She hissed, pulling her arm back to punch him again. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? Having to wait until the rest of Interpol showed up? They had a lot of questions, Cooper. A _lot_ of questions!"

All Sly could do was quietly laugh while trying to dodge her volley of punches, each one less seriously attempted than the last. "Not my proudest moment, I know, but ten seconds? Really? I wouldn't have made it fifty feet until you started shooting at me. So, you wanted to know something we had in common? That fight with Clockwerk pretty much sums it up, don't you think?"

She sighed, now seeing what it was that he was trying to convey. She wasn't very enthusiastic about agreeing with him, but there wasn't much point in trying to deny it. "So, you only steal from oth-" She stopped herself, taking another sip of wine. "From criminals?"

Sly nodded. "I don't think I'm a bad guy. At least, I hope I'm not. You have your way of trying to make the world a little bit safer, and I have mine. The end result is the same, even if the way we get there is a little bit different."

"Putting it a bit lightly, don't you think?" She asked playfully. "Not so black and white after all, is it?"

"That's me!" He chipped happily. "A healthy, well-groomed gray!"

"'Well-groomed', huh?" She teased, batting at his arm again. "Aren't you technically homeless?"

"Ouch," he whined, putting a hand to his heart, though unable to keep a smile from creeping up. "That one hurt, Carmelita."

"I'm sure you'll live."

Sly leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. "So what about you?"

"Hmm?"

"Why'd you want to be a cop?" He asked again, this time with a more hopeful look in his eyes. "Real answer this time."

She gave him a sideways smile, shaking her head at the insufferable raccoon. To her surprise, she started telling him. Any attempt she made to try and avoid what was happening was quickly thwarted by her own sense of hopeless optimism. "My parents were both police officers, and so were both of theirs. I'm fifth generation," she said with same brand of pride that had been in Sly's answer.. "No tragic backstory, sorry." She shot him an apologetic glance. "My parents encouraged me to follow my dreams, whatever they were. It just happened that I wanted more than anything to be an officer, like they were. Huh." She looked over at him again, years of ironclad perceptions about him slowly eroding. "I guess we really aren't so different, are we?"

"Guess not," he smiled.

Her thoughts drifted back to the volcano. Taking down Clockwerk had been one of the defining moments of her career, and had earned her no shortage of praise. It was what had ultimately allowed her to stay on the Cooper case, despite coming up short handed on numerous occasions in regard to it. Despite her lack of progress on the front they'd figured that if _anyone_ could finally catch Sly Cooper it would be the one who took down one of the most feared crime syndicates in the world. It was funny how their paths crossed as often as they did, his and hers. Despite how she had liked to think in the past that there was no possible way they could share a common goal, the evidence to the contrary was rapidly mounting.

It had always been there, she supposed, she had just been too stubborn to realize it. Too black and white. She picked the bottle of wine up from between them and refilled her glass once more. She held it out to Sly, offering to be the one to fill his glass this time. He accepted her offer with a gracious smile, the empty bottle clinking hollowly as she set it back down between them. The idea that they had more in common than she had realized was slowly becoming familiar to her. While it had once been a frightening concept that she had dedicated no small effort towards ignoring and reasoning against, his position was beginning to make sense.

"Thanks," he said, reclining once more. "And sorry about the whole handcuffing thing," he continued sheepishly, fighting the urge to start tapping his foot. "And about how I had to, uh, _distract_ you first."

She remembered the kiss. Actually, it'd probably be more honest of her to say that she'd never forgotten it, and as such had no reason to remember it right now, because it was already fresh on her mind. At the time she'd been too occupied with trying to free herself rather than going over the litany of emotions that his _distraction_ had rallied within her, and any straggling feelings that had mounted over the next few weeks were quickly locked away- neatly, orderly, and securely. The last thing she needed was the empty act of a trickster to distract her from her true goal. However, the open honesty with which he was speaking right now was doing nothing to keep from fanning her emotional flames, which were rapidly building as the way he looked to her eye began to change. She briskly shooed those thoughts back into their boxes; letting her emotions - especially _those_ emotions - run freely about was a surefire lead in to a completely avoidable catastrophe. She'd dealt with it in the past, and there was no way in hell she was going to willfully deal with it again.

She pursed her lips, her expression hardening at his apology. She knew the blame was equally on her for allowing it to happen, and that his apology was a sincere one. Besides, he'd never lied to her before. Misled, tricked, hidden- yes, but never had he outright lied. It was another one of those features that was so infuriatingly interesting about him. Adding on to his case file was always a painful exercise in self control for her. The way he operated was so markedly different from every other garden variety criminal that she'd dealt with, and it took an upsetting amount of effort on her part to keep her interests professional. There had been a handful of times were she'd wondered why he'd done a certain thing a certain way, and it was always a deflating realization to know that she'd never have all the answers that she sought, even if she were to eventually apprehend him.

Her eyes turned towards him once again. He was looking out over the city, outwardly much more relaxed than he had been when they'd first sat down, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. As she thought about it, she realized that this was the first time she'd ever truly looked at him. Every other time they'd met face to face, and there had been many times, she was always too preoccupied with _watching_ him. She'd never taken the time to openly pick apart the way he looked in anything other than an academic sense, and the candid nature of their conversation had her feeling a type of daring that she rarely ever got to experience.

"Why do you wear that mask?" She asked, turning in her chair to better face him as she lent a voice to her new point of view. No matter how much she looked at him, it was the one piece that she kept coming back to. It wasn't like it was doing anything to hide his identity at this point, and was honestly probably a bigger factor in him being recognized.

He shrugged, pawing at the base of the article in question. "Tradition, I guess. Don't all thieves wear masks?"

"In movies, maybe."

"Well, what's wrong with having a little bit of style?"

"Style?" She smirked. "Is that what you're calling it? You dress up in a costume and crawl around at night, and you call it style?"

"Artistic flair, then, whatever." His hand reached up to the knot that fastened it in the back, making sure it was secure.

Carmelita's unease began to creep back up as he stopped, turning to look over at her with a curious expression on his face. He seemed to be considering her deeply for a few moments, waffling back and forth on some unknown decision before he started moving again, his fingers slowly tugging at the fabric of his mask. It suddenly went limp across his face, and he pulled it completely off. Their entire interaction on this rooftop tonight had surprised her, but this certainly took the cake for being the one thing she had least expected to happen.

"Would it be too cheesy to reintroduce myself?"

She laughed, internally happy that he had been the first to break the silence. "Definitely."She'd never seen him without his mask on before. By his nature of being a raccoon, there was still a darker stripe of fur that lent him a natural 'mask' of sorts, but it was much lighter than the one he normally wore. It was only a shade or two darker than the fur that made up the majority of his coat, and it framed his eyes in a way that made them impossible to ignore.

It was the first time she'd ever looked at him without a purpose, and what she was seeing had her rethinking much of what she thought she knew. She'd read through his file dozens of times. Hell, she'd written half of it in the first place. She was positive she knew more about him than anyone else, save for those that were part of his gang, yet as she sat here, sharing a bottle of wine with him, she was starting to realize how little she actually understood.

Academically her knowledge of him was perfect. She could recite every single known incident he'd been involved in since he'd hit the world stage. Known associates, estimated net worth, modus operandi, all committed to memory. She could even rattle of his biometrics should she need to: height, weight, eye color… but until know, all of those facts had simply been bullet points on a page. With him next to her, all those facts took on a physical presence that was decidedly more impactful. Sly Cooper was more than a list of features in a dusty file, and the proof was sitting right there next to her.

He cocked his head, inwardly squirming at the attention. Carmelita had been staring into his eyes for just a touch longer than he was comfortable with. "Everything alright?"

She didn't respond. Not at first, anyway. She took a few more moments to sit there, staring at him as her brow began to knit together. "Who are you?" She asked quietly.

He let out a short laugh, looking at the mask he now held in his hands. "Wow, I didn't know this thing worked _that_ good." He held out his arms in a 'here I am' type of pose, bowing slightly. "Sly Cooper, international thief extraordinaire. Thought you said I didn't need to reintroduce myself," he teased.

All she could do was shake her head, unable to keep a small smile from forming. He was definitely the same Sly Cooper that she had spent all those nights obsessing over, amending his file and trying to connect the dots on when and where he would appear next to flex his craft, but now she had the benefit of seeing him through a different lense. Not much had been spoken between them this night, at least not anything that should have shaken her convictions as deeply as they had been, yet here they were. Perhaps, she thought, it was the _way_ he had spoken. He'd given her an answer to why he wanted to be a thief, just like she asked, but he'd said it all in such an honest, heartfelt way that it had taken her completely off guard. Her guards against him had shaken tremendously when he had kissed her at Krakarov, and the cracks had deepened even further during their helicopter 'date' after they'd defeated Clock-La.

She'd been able to outrun her feelings for him about as effectively as he'd been able to outrun her. No matter what, during all of their chases and close calls, it was almost as if Sly went out of his way to make sure they ran into each other. He was always there, just out of reach, and resurfacing at the worst possible times to make her days more complicated than they had to be. She frowned as the parallels drew deeper. Instead of fighting them as she had done countless times in the past, she let the last few bolts and locks holding her emotional dams in place shake loose and fall.

She let her attention fall from him, redirecting it back towards her glass of wine. "Sly Cooper," she said, her tone lilting his name almost questioningly.

He perked. It was very rarely that he ever heard her use his given name. He couldn't count the number of times he'd heard 'ringtail', 'thief', or simply an unintelligible string of curses screamed at him as she'd given chase. Honestly, he didn't know how to respond. Luckily, he didn't have to. At least not immediately.

"Answer me something," she continued. Saying his name had left an odd feeling on her tongue, though it would be wrong to call it entirely unpleasant. Unusual, yes, but not disagreeable.

"Sure."

"If everything up here went according to plan tonight," she began, choosing her words carefully and slowly, "what was your end goal? What's the best way this could end? What are you hoping for? And don't tell me it was 'just to talk', either," she quickly clarified. "So I might not know you as well as I thought I did," she reluctantly admitted, "but I know when you're after something."

Sly took a deep breath, prepping his words. "Oh, I don't know," he began, quickly abandoning his first thought to be honest with her and instead deciding that humor would be the best course of action, "maybe an undying profession of undying love towards each other as we both run off into the sunset, er, sunrise, and, I don't know, start a new life as farmers in Fiji?"

 _Misled, tricked, hidden- but never outright lied._ She couldn't keep herself from bristling at how he was making light of her questioning. "So this is just a joke to you, then? Were you just bored tonight, and decided to see if I'd play along?"

"That's not…" He deflated into his chair with a sigh. He knew what he wanted to say, but the words proved elusive.

He'd come to an uneasy realization after their lengthy conversation held high above the city those few short months ago. Even lengthier conversations held with himself in the time since had produced a number of possible explanations for his reasoning, but there was a rather simple crux to it all. Sly had been through a lot with his two friends: hopping across the globe from one exotic locale to the next as they hunted down ancient artifacts, put a stop to criminal enterprises, discovered secrets long thought lost to myth… There were an incalculable number of events that the three had been through in just a handful of years, and their adventures were unfortunately the kind that they would probably never be able to share. Since the vast majority of what they had all done was slightly south of the good side of the law, well intentioned or not, it wasn't as though they could come out and start recounting everything to the press, signing book and movie deals left and right. Their life was an entirely insular one, and, after a while, he'd started to feel the first creeping touches of loneliness inching forwards. Bentley and Murray were always there for him, that wasn't the issue, it was…

The realization he'd come to waved feebly to him from the distance once more: He'd been through a _lot_ of crazy stuff over the years, and one of the only other people to have gone through almost all of it with him was sitting in the chair adjacent. There was _something_ that connected them, there had to be. How could they have gone through as much as they had, as often as they had, and not come out the other end of it all without common threads of interest and experience?

That realization, while simple, had caused him a large amount of grief lately. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, but, whether through inability or ignorance, the words still would not come to him. "We've been through a lot, haven't we?"

Carmelita's brow furrowed, her guard still up from earlier. "Yes, we have." She shook her head lightly, her annoyance melting and giving way to more simple curiosity. "If this isn't just you killing time, then what did you want tonight, Cooper?"

It was a direct question that he would be unable to avoid. She'd broached his defenses, and now any attempt he could make to distract her or change the subject would be completely ineffective at best, and harmful towards everything he actually wanted at worst. No way around it now. "What I was hoping," he started, unable to turn and face her, "was that at the end of this, we would both want to meet up again sometime for another one of these."

"Were you… hoping to score a _date_ out of this, Ringtail?"

His hunched his shoulders as he turned to face her. "...Yes?"

She stared at him for what felt like an eternity, his forced smile becoming more and more pained as the duration stretched on. "You know that wouldn't work." She was very careful in the way she worded her response. As impossible as his intentions had been tonight, they were dangerously close to unscrewing the cap on the vessel she had sealed herself away within.

"I know," he answered simply, letting his shoulders fall.

"So why are we up here?"

"Because I was really hoping it could have worked." His fingers twitched his mask back and forth in his hands, desperately trying to find something to direct his attention towards.

Carmelita twisted his cane back and forth through her fingers, his plain-spoken sincerity threatening to undo quite a lot of what she held dear. She was acutely aware that the last of her defenses were crumbling, and she had all but given up trying to hold them together any longer. She didn't know what to fill the air between them with, but anything was better than the silence that currently blanketed them. Grasping for anything she could, she decided to ask another question about the one thing that had caused her the most distress. "Why did you kiss me?"

"I'm guessing 'because I wanted to' won't be a good enough answer?"

"You would be correct."

He took a deep breath. "Well, that's… kind of the answer? It was at first, anyway."

She perked an eyebrow. "At first?"

Sly nodded. "Didn't put a whole lot of thought into it. Was just one of those 'seemed like a good idea at the time' things." He looked over to see her still fidgeting with his cane, shaking his head with a small smile. He leaned back once more, resting an ankle across the top of his other leg. "I've thought about that kiss a lot since then," he added simply.

She laughed softly, nodding subtly. No sense in being anything but honest, especially not now. When would they ever get another opportunity like this? "Me too."

It was Sly's turn to raise an eyebrow. "While you're throwing darts at that picture of me you keep in your office?"

"Ha! I took that down months ago. Surprised you didn't notice when you left those Pompeiian scrolls on my desk. We didn't even know those had gone missing yet! That was a pain in the ass trying to explain how we had them before the museum even knew they were gone."

Sly held his hands up defensively, unable to hide another smile. "It wasn't me that took them from the museum, I promise."

"I know, we figured that out pretty quick." She leaned back, crossing her legs. She sat his cane across her lap, noticing how he tracked its path from her side. Drumming her fingers along its shaft, she realized she had a decision to make. She could give it back to him and that would be the end of it, or she could just keep it. Keeping it would throw away… _whatever_ the hell was happening to them on this rooftop, but it would be the capstone to so much that she had worked towards building. Her thoughts turned inwards as she looked at the object in front of her.

A question he'd asked earlier sprang to mind. ' _Give me one good reason why you haven't already run off with it.'_ At first she'd thought she didn't have an answer for him, but as she'd sat here and they'd spoken she felt what might have been an answer starting to play at the edges of her thoughts. It had been creeping its way in throughout their conversation, sitting just out of reach and just out of focus. If she were to be completely honest with herself she already knew what it was, she was just really hoping she wouldn't have to come to terms with it. She wanted to know him more than she did, but the dichotomy of their respective careers made that all but impossible. This time spent with him here, on this rooftop with nothing between them but a bottle of wine, was a rare opportunity to know him for more than just a criminal. Her slow realization mirrored Sly's in that he was the only one to have gone through as much as she had, if not more. His life was surely a lonely one, and her unwavering dedication to what she lead her life towards had left her isolated in a prison of her own construction. Leave it to a criminal to know just how to break her out of jail.

Her fingers twitched across the top of the cane. She'd made her decision.

Sly's eyes widened as she proffered his cane back to him, holding it up and over so he could take it. He looked between her and it a number of times before slowly reaching over. His hand brushed hers as his fingers wrapped around it. For a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, they both refused to move; Sly made no move to bring it towards himself, nor did Carmelita make any to let go. "As soon as I take this, you know i'm going to disappear again." He said it as a warning, wanting to make sure that she knew exactly what it was that she was doing.

Carmelita's grip tightened around it momentarily before she finally let go and withdrew her hand, leaving Sly alone to hold it between them. "I know," she said, looking back out across the city. She took a deep breath before looking back to where Sly was sitting, making sure he hadn't found a way to disappear yet. To her satisfaction, and perhaps her surprise, he was still there. More importantly, he was looking directly back at her. "So," she said suddenly, causing those dark, maskless eyes of his to blink in surprise, "when is the next one of _these_ going to be."

He smiled dimly. "I thought you said that wouldn't work."

She agreed with him. Of _course_ she agreed with him, but that didn't change the fact that she wanted to get to know him. She couldn't allow there to be any other option, and letting go of his cane was the only way to ensure that. If he were to be arrested, they would most likely never see each other again. He would be put under strict lock and key to where even his two escape artist friends wouldn't be able to get to him, and that would be it. It wasn't an option anymore to let things continue on as they had been. Their back and forth had gotten stale, and her own revelations that maybe, just _maybe_ there was some semblance of truth to his assertions that what he was doing was good had given her enough of a foothold to let her emotions start grasping at straws. She knew it was dangerous, she knew it was reckless, she knew it was without a doubt the worst idea she'd ever had, but she had to. "I did," she replied, hesitantly meeting his smile, "but just in case it does."

Sly set his empty glass down, his smile feeling confident enough to spread just a bit further. "I'll be in touch."

And with that, true to his word, he disappeared over the edge of the roofline.

Carmelita smiled into her glass, emptying what was left of her wine. Occasions where they were able to just sit and talk were exceptionally rare, but every time they occurred, and despite her best efforts to the contrary, she couldn't help but enjoy them. They could be more than just enemies at odds for the duration of their meetings. Perhaps, though, the truth of the matter was that they could be less. She was no longer an officer of the law, and he was no longer one who broke it. For the short times that they shared together like this in the past, almost all of them had occured when they had dropped their labels. She hoped that the next meeting like this would be sooner rather than later so that they could go back to being something more.

Or maybe something less.

Even if only briefly.


End file.
